MKV vs MPG - what is the point in an MKV?

jaybee

jaybee

jaybee

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Hey guys. Most HD movies are distributed as .MKV files. Whilst applications such as VNC Player will play these files, Playstation 3s will not. Personally rather than run Tversity media server and transcode MKV files on the fly to readable mpg files that the PS3 can deal with, (I assume thats what happens) I like to convert them to MPG files so that the PS3 just plays them outright and my PC does not have to do any work. I have found sometimes that my PC will be at 100% CPU utilization trying to transcode some 1080p movies and it causes stutter.
I just convert to MPG and play them. Question, is their a disadvantage or loss in quality to using one over the other? What is the point in an MKV file if an MPG does the same thing and is more readable by hardware/software?
 
Better compression, more efficient, capable of handling more data.


MKVs usually contain MPEG-4 video, and your ps3 can play MP4 perfectly, it just doesn't support the container. You just need to remux to a different container for it to be able to play on a ps3. You don't need to re-encode the entire movie.
 
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MKV's are a container/wrapper file not a format of compression.

MKV's can hold - Multiple Audio tracks, ie. main movie and the commentary. Multiple Subtitle tracks. Chapter support iirc. Support for DD 5.1 & DTS audio. I'd have to double check but iirc MP4 files only contain AAC sound.

Compare apples to apples, codecs like DIvX, H.264, ACC, MP3 etc and containers like AVI, MP4, MKV etc.

Had a look, this is quite interesting. The differences between the containers > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_container_formats
 
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jaybee said:
I just convert to MPG and play them. Question, is their a disadvantage or loss in quality to using one over the other? What is the point in an MKV file if an MPG does the same thing and is more readable by hardware/software?
Click to expand...

Anytime you transcode you're further reducing the quality.

MKV is popular because it's a very capable wrapper as highlighted by fornowagain.
 
I guess i am assuming a lot of ppl will use nasty one click programs, you're right you can get around it most of the time.
 
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